REOPENING!
Board of trade comes out in favour but other groups aren't sure it's a good idea
Many Ottawa business owners were thrilled to reopen their doors as Step 3 began Friday, but the next stage also pushed the divisive issue of vaccination passports further to the forefront. Dr. Kumanan Wilson is among those who support the use of passports.
The Ottawa Board of Trade favours vaccination passports that would allow businesses to determine if staff and customers have been immunized against COVID-19, its president and CEO says.
But Sueling Ching also acknowledges such passports, which could perhaps take the form of QR codes stored on smartphones, are a divisive issue.
“We are still monitoring all the various positions, but generally, we are interested in creating an environment in which all of us are able to live with COVID and still function in our economy,” says Ching.
“We see digital vaccination records as one more component of an overall strategy to keep businesses open,” she says.
This week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said provinces will make their own decisions on domestic vaccine passports, while the federal government's responsibility lies in standardizing proof-of-vaccination for international travel.
The Toronto Region Board of Trade has called on the Ontario government to introduce a vaccine passport system for non-essential business activity. The Quebec government has said it will require vaccine passports by September if COVID -19 rates increase. Manitoba is issuing vaccine cards to fully immunized people. European nations like France have begun to make vaccine passports a part of daily life.
But Ontario Premier Doug Ford
said this week he does not favour passports or proofs of vaccination.
When a reporter at a press conference said vaccination slips could be forged, Ford responded: “I've never believed in proof, everyone gets their proof when they get the vaccination.
“The answer is no, we aren't going to do it,” Ford said.
Ching says trusted vaccination certificates, along with rapid testing for COVID -19, could help build consumer confidence after the pandemic shattered it.
With the global rise of the Delta variant and the possibility that infection rates will climb this fall as life returns indoors, Ching says proof of vaccination belongs within a “suite of strategies” to avoid lockdowns and the shutting of schools. “Let's get ahead of the game,” she says.
“We've seen society shut down. This is a potential way to avoid that,” agrees Dr. Kumanan Wilson, CEO and founder of CANImmunize, a technology company specializing in immunization software that was spun out from The Ottawa Hospital in 2019.
He says that as the pandemic continues to evolve, booster shots to address waning immunity and even new vaccines designed to combat new variants may be required. It's in the interest of people to carry their own records of vaccination and consent to sharing that information if there are valid public health reasons, Wilson says.
“There are going to be personal responsibilities and corporate responsibilities in keeping everybody safe,” he says.
In crowded workplaces such as meat-packing plants, he says vaccination records could help prevent the spread of COVID-19 between co-workers. “There could be issues with allowing unimmunized individuals to come into the workplace if cases were associated with the workplace,” he says. He reiterates that “employees should always consent” to the sharing of their vaccination data.
For businesses hosting large gatherings, a protocol involving vaccination records could help avoid a superspreader event, Wilson adds.
But the perspectives of businesses in Ontario have been mixed.
This week, GoodLife Fitness Centres, Canada's largest health club company, said on Twitter it is not currently planning to require staff or members to be vaccinated. “For privacy reasons, GoodLife will not disclose information regarding any individual associate's vaccination status,” it tweeted.
Yet outside of the T&T Supermarket on Hunt Club Road, a sign has long been in place, letting customers know the percentage of staff that have been vaccinated. It recently stood at 91 per cent.
Some venues say they take no position on vaccine passports, except that they will follow the direction of health authorities.
“Ottawa Public Health is going to be our guide,” says Leanne Moussa, managing partner of allsaints event space in Sandy Hill, which has begun hosting weddings of up to 25 people indoors, but can hold up to 300.
“We'll let them tell us the safest and most appropriate way to proceed and we'll just follow those rules,” Moussa says.
Tony Zacconi, owner of Sala San Marco on Preston Street, calls vaccine passports “a little bit overkill.
“I think if you're vaccinated, you're fine. Those that don't want to get a vaccine, it's on them if they want to get sick,” says Zacconi.
His venue, which can hold a few hundred people, doesn't need a passport system, he says.
“Maybe if you're thousands of people in one place or on a plane,” says Zacconi.
“I really, really want to get back to living a normal life,” he adds.
Nicholas Bott, a founder of Aquatopia Conservatory, a wedding venue on March Road, objects to a passport program for several reasons.
“We encourage people to go get vaccines. But that's individual choice. We can't enforce that,” says Bott, contending that demanding medical information violates privacy laws and opens businesses to being sued.
If authorities want to manage passport stations and inspectors, that's up to them, says Bott. But the government should not be downloading enforcement onto businesses, he says.
Premier Ford has said a vaccine passport program would lead to a “split society,” which he opposes. Bott uses similar language when he says a program would “create a division of society, where a fifth of society (which won't get vaccinated) is being discriminated against.
“You've created a rift in society,” says Bott. “I don't think that's what Ontario and Canada are all about.”